Lest we forget the "confusion" of Joseph Wilson
By Vincent Fiore
web posted July 18, 2005
The bombing in London by terrorist and the continuation of the
war in Iraq were of secondary importance to official Washington
and the mainstream media this week. Even the prospect of the
president having to replace two vacancies upon the Supreme
Court received short shrift.
Instead, the continuing saga of Karl Rove, Joe Wilson, and
Valerie Plame and who-outed-who electrified the media in what
has to be one the biggest non-stories in politics to date. While
the country has been deluged with Rove’s supposed dark and
“traitorous” vendetta against former CIA agent, sometime Vanity
Fair cover girl Valerie Plame, I thought it might be useful to
remind all just who is most responsible for the tangled web of
intrigue we find ourselves in today.
Memo to the masses: When you see the words “misspoken,”
“erred,” and “confused,” in relation to former ambassador
Joseph Wilson, know this: These words are typical beltway
qualifiers that seek to say in essence that “I lied,” without ever
having to say the word “lied.”
As surely as the sun rises and sets upon another Democratic
chapter of “The conspiracies of President Bush,” Joe Wilson has
broken the hearts of many a Democrat in Washington--not by
lying but by getting caught.
It seems like ages ago that columnist Robert Novak first alerted
the public to the doings of the innocuous and relatively unknown
Wilson. But in a column written on July 14, 2003, Novak wrote
of Wilson’s trip to Africa in February, 2002, to see if Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq was trying to buy Uranium, or “yellowcake” from
Niger.
Forward to January 28, 2003, and the president’s State of the
Union address: “The British government has learned that
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium
from Africa.”
It is here in these now-famous 16 words that Democrats in
Congress then and now talk themselves into near apoplexy,
saying that Bush “misled” the country about pre-war intelligence.
But until Wilson went public with a 1400-word op-ed titled
“What I Didn’t Find in Iraq” in the New York Times on July 6,
his findings regarding Iraq trying to purchase uranium went little
noticed. It was Wilson’s op-ed that not only ignited
Congressional Democrats into a political frenzy, but tipped his
hand as an official “Kerry for President” acolyte.
In his New York Times op-ed, Wilson brazenly declared:
“Based on my experience with the administration in the months
leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that
some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons
program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
But as the Senate Intelligence Committee’s July 9, 2004, report
shows, it is Wilson who twisted intelligence to actually downplay
Iraq’s nuclear threat, thereby meeting his own political agenda of
helping Kerry win the election in November.
Consider the Senate committee’s findings:
The panel found that Wilson’s report, “rather than debunking
intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, actually
bolstered the case for most intelligence analysis.”
(www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39834-2004Jul9)
To this day, British intelligence maintains that Saddam Hussein
sought uranium in Africa, recently underlined by a report from
The Financial Times of London. The British government states
“European intelligence officers have now revealed… human and
electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked
up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger.”
The New York Times paraphrased the above with a clear-cut
story titled: “Intelligence Backs Claim Iraq Tried to Buy
Uranium.” The essay leaves no doubt as to the claim of Bush in
January 2003 that Saddam Hussein was not only was trying to
procure uranium, but had been for years.
(www.nytimes.com/financialtimes/business/FT1087373295002.
html)
Ambassador Wilson’s wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame,
“specifically recommended” Wilson for the trip to Africa. In a
memo from Plame dated February 12, 2002, to the deputy chief
of the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) from Plame, the
Senate report concludes that according to the CIA testimony,
Plame “offered up his (Wilson’s) name.”
(www.gopusa.com/news/2004/july/0713_wilson_plame_intel.sht
ml)
Wilson misled the Washington Post in June 2003, when he told
the paper that the Niger intelligence was based on documents
that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and
the names were wrong." In fact, Wilson had never seen the
reports.When the Senate committee staff asked Wilson how he
could have come to that conclusion, Wilson replied that he may
have “misspoken” (See first paragraph) to reporters.
(www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39834-2004Jul9)
Contrary to Wilson’s claim’s that the Bush administration
understood that it was knowingly passing along questionable
information to the American public, the Senate committee found
in its investigations that the CIA did not tell the White House it
had its own doubts about an Iraq/Niger connection for the
procuring of uranium.
Joseph Wilson has had extensive ties to the Democratic Party
throughout much of his time in Washington. Wilson is an
unabashed supporter and donor to the Kerry/Edwards campaign
for the presidency. In 2000, he donated to Vice President
Gore’s election, as has his wife, Valerie Plame. In the mid-
eighties, Wilson worked for Gore as a congressional staffer. He
has donated money to such liberal stalwarts as Hillary Clinton
and Ted Kennedy. He has in the recent past spoken to liberal
“527” groups like Win Without War, which is a part of
MoveOn.org, the premiere liberal hate group that is renowned
for its coarse and hate-inspired political sloganeering.
Joe Wilson, like former terrorist czar Richard Clarke, who also
tried to spin a web of deceit against Bush, have shown to be
seriously lacking the moral character that one would expect from
such once-trusted government officials.
It is chilling to me just what the acquisition of power means to the
party out of power. In this case, it is the Democratic Party. It has
shown that it and its supporters, like Clarke and Wilson, would
willingly throw the country into political disarray all in hopes of
attaining political power and favor.
It is unclear whether honest news can travel fast in a media mired
in political self-interest reporting. I suspect not, as I’m sure this
surprises no one interested in the truth. One would hope that the
country learns of the mendacity of Joe Wilson, and his
willingness to inject his political viewpoints in a time of war, all in
the hopes of seeing a Democrat in the White House.
The prolific architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, said “The truth is
more important than the facts.” I would amend his words to say
“The truth is that much more important because of the facts.” In
Joseph Wilson, the fact of the matter is that the truth is not
important, regardless of the facts.
Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New
York City. He receives e-mail at anwar004@aol.com.
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